290 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



thick and firm or subcoriaceous, dark green, glabrous and lustrous above, light green or 

 silvery white and glabrous below except on the slender often pubescent midrib, usually 

 2'-3' long and 1' wide, but varying from l'-3' in length and f'-l' in width; falling gradu- 

 ally during the winter or sometimes persistent until the appearance of the new leaves in 

 the spring; petioles tomentose, rarely ' in length. Flowers: staminate in short hirsute 

 aments; calyx hirsute, divided into 5 acute laciniately cut segments; anthers hirsute; pis- 

 tillate sessile or short-stalked, their involucral 'scales coated with dense pale tomentum. 

 Fruit usually sessile, solitary or in pairs; nut oval, about f long and f ' thick, pubescent 

 from the obtuse rounded apex nearly to the middle, inclosed for nearly half its length in 

 the deep cup-shaped light brown cup slightly pubescent on the inner surface, and covered 

 by ovate-oblong pointed scales thickened on the back, especially toward the base of the 

 cup, and coated with pale tomentum except on their thin reddish brown margins. 



Occasionally a tree, 50 high, with a trunk 1 in diameter, stout branches forming a 

 round-topped head, and slender branchlets coated at first with dense bright yellow pubes- 

 cence, becoming light or dark red-brown and puberulous during their first winter and ulti- 

 mately ashy gray; more often a rigid shrub sometimes only l-2 tall. Winter-buds ovoid, 

 acute, obtuse, about \ f long, with glabrous or puberulous light chestnut-brown scales. 

 Bark dark or pale, separating freely into large irregular plate-like scales. 



Distribution. Sandy barrens usually in the neighborhood of the coast; Bluffton, 

 Beaufort County, South Carolina, Colonels Islands, Liberty County, Georgia, southward 

 along the east coast of Florida to the shores of Indian River; on the west coast from the 

 valley of the Caloosahatchee River to the shores of Pensacola Bay, and in the interior of 

 the peninsular from Lake County to De Soto County (neighborhood of Sebring) ; rare and 

 local on the Atlantic coast; comparatively rare in the interior of the Florida peninsular; 

 abundant in western Florida from the shores of Tampa Bay to those of Saint Andrews 

 Bay. 



42. Quercus macrocarpa Michx. Burr Oak. Mossy Cup Oak. 



Leaves obovate or oblong, cuneate or occasionally narrow and rounded at base, di- 

 vided by wide sinuses sometimes penetrating nearly to the midrib into 5-7 lobes, the 

 terminal lobe large, oval or obovate, regularly crenately lobed, or smaller and 3-lobed at 



Fig. 267 



the rounded or acute apex, when they unfold yellow-green and pilose above and silvery 

 white and coated below with long pale hairs, at maturity thick and firm, dark green, lus- 

 trous and glabrous, or occasionally pilose on the upper surface, pale green or silvery white 

 and covered on the lower surface with soft pale or rarely rufous pubescence, 6'-12' long, 



